Legendary soul singer and O’Jay’s singer, Eddie Levert has had the types of career ups that anybody in the music business would love to have: He’s a Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee, he has a BET Lifetime Achievement Award, and of course he has hit songs from the O’Jays’ like “For the Love of Money,” “Cry Together” and “Living for the City” are beloved all across the world.
But as many of know, with any ups, there are downs. And with Eddie, his downs almost took him out. He’ll be the first to tell you that last few years have been rough. He’s had to bury two sons—singer Gerald Levert died in 2006 from a heart attack and his other son, Sean— who also performed in the group Levert, died in 2008 from complications of sarcoidosis.
Then…his ex-wife, the mother of both Gerald and Sean, died in 2020.
Eddie shares first-hand what he went through and how he’s able to smile through the pain now.
“God. That’s how I made it through. Losing my boys was not an easy thing. But there’s always that thing that says, ‘God never puts anything on you that you can’t handle,’ and ‘everything has a reason.’ And it was never in my power to stop that from happening, because I would’ve given anything and everything. That being said, that was a very dark place for me because I had started … to do this. I originally had this idea before Gerald and them did Levert, because that was really my name and he stole it! I told him, I said, ‘Gerald I’m gonna start off, I’m gonna get me a band and put it together ‘cause I wanna do some little things a little bit different than what the O’Jays do. I can never change the way I sound, so it’s gonna always sound like me and the O’Jays, but I can always do things that come from my heart.’”
“But when Gerald and Sean passed away,” Eddie continued. “I wanted to really blame myself because I felt like it was some things I could’ve kept them from seeing that I did in my life, as a father. You know what I’m saying? People say,…